Father of the Mission: A Documentary History of San Carlos
Borromeo. Compiled and Edited by Francis J. Weber. Hong Kong: Libra Press
Limited. 1984. 225 Pages. $18.00
Francis J. Weber's series of documentary collections on the
California missions reaches a peak of romanticization with the volume on the
mission at Carmel, Mission San Carlos Borromeo. The tone is set in the preface
with a description by Robert Louis Stevenson of the Carmel Creek: "a clear and
shallow river, loved by wading kine; and at last as it is falling toward a
quicksand and the great Pacific, passes a ruined mission on a hill..." Weber's
sixty-five documents cover the usual range from original records to a heavy dose
of secondary literature and poetry. The book will provide future historians with
less of a foundation for the history of the Carmel mission than data for
studies of the romanticization of the mission experience.
